Blog: Escalating violence in Northeast Ohio

There's been a marked increase in violence the last week or two in Northeast Ohio, especially where one person tries to run over the other person.

Tuesday we received a report about a Mentor-on-the-Lake man who was arrested that mroning after challenging police at the Cardinal Autism Resource and Education Center.

Police said he had a machete in the back seat of his car and a gun on the center console in the front seat. Police arrested Armand R. Dinardo Jr., 46, the ex-husband of one of the center's employees.

It appears the couple were in a custody battle over their teenage daughter. Dinardo refused to leave and then refused to get out of his car when ordered by police.

Finally, he drove slowly towards officers with his hands in the air. Officers were able to get him to stop the vehicle. Police said he will be charged with two counts of illegal conveyance of a deadly weapon in a school safety zone, a felony; inducing panic, and criminal trespassing.

Then there's the Eastlake man who was charged with felonious assault for allegedly attempting to run over his wife as she held their baby in her arms.

Police say they were called to E. 348th Street in Eastlake just after 9 p.m. Saturday after a woman called and said her husband attempted to run her and their child over with a truck. She said she called him to ask him to take their baby son to the hospital.

He arrived and the police said they began to argue and he told her to have someone else take them. As she was getting ready to go, her husband pulled into the driveway, they continued arguing, and then she headed towards her front door.

The police report says the husband began revving up the truck while she was in front of it, he then "peeled out," chasing her to the front door with the truck. She told police she had to run for the house with the baby in her arms.

Police found the husband, Mark Demarco, 29, and he said that his wife threw a full can of pop at him and struck him in the mouth and, that after being struck by the pop can, he retaliated, but would not elaborate on what that "retaliation" was. Police said he had no visible injuries.

Demarco was charged with two counts of felonious assault and held without bond until his court arraignment.

Then there's the man who police say was involved in the hit-skip death Friday of a 9-year-old girl who finally turned himself in has turned himself in Sunday.

Olivia Thompson was hit by a vehicle after crossing the street on the 500 Block of E. State Street near South Lundy Avenue in Salem outside Akron. Thompson was taken to Salem Community Hospital where she was flown by Life Flight to Akron's Children's Hospital where she later died at 5:45 a.m. Saturday morning.

Police found the small black pick-up truck involved in the accident. People seem to be using their vehicles without thought or with the thought of harming others.

And one last thing. I'm sure you've all seen this video that went viral on the Internet.

The Cleveland woman who was filmed in September driving on the sidewalk to avoid stopping for a school bus had her first of two days of standing at the same intersection with a sign that read "only an idiot would drive on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus."

Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Pinkey Carr took away her driver's license for 30 days and sentenced her to stand at the corner for two days but Carr is not happy with how a woman carried out her unusual sentence the first day Tuesday.

Carr was upset when she learned Hardin merely leaned on her sign for an hour Tuesday morning, while she chain-smoked, texted, and hopped back into a waiting car a couple times during the hour she was supposed to be clearly displaying the sign.

"If I wanted someone standing there for an hour texting and smoking cigarettes, I would have had that as part of her sentence," Carr told WKYC. "But, clearly, she's missing the point. Clearly, it's still a situation where she's defiant."

And so Judge Carr has made plans to personally supervise Shena Hardin on the corner of East 38th Street and Superior Avenue at 7:45 Wednesday morning.

Now I would never defy Carr who, before being elected judge last year, was one of the two Cuyahoga County prosecutors who prosecuted now-convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell in the summer of 2011 for the 11 murders of women in and around his Imperial Avenue home.

Some people just don't know when to stop being arrogant and self-righteous and admit they are wrong.